The present invention is an air cleaner which catalytically burns contaminants in the air. The cleaner is intended especially for eliminating gaseous contaminants, smoke particles, bacteria, and aerosols.
The air in confined living and working spaces must be cleaned or renewed at short intervals. In a spacecraft or a submarine, there is no possibility of renewing the air, so it must be cleaned. In a jet airliner, one has a choice of cleaning the air or supplying makeup air from the outside.
A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences ("The Airliner Cabin Environment," ISBN 0-309-03690-9) describes the need for an air cleaner in a jet airliner. In the absence of cleaning, the makeup air varies from about 7 cubic feet per minute (CFM) per person in economy class to 150 CFM for crew members in the cockpit--a flow needed to keep sensitive electronic equipment cool. The energy consumption for compressing this air to cabin pressure can add 5% to the fuel consumption for the airliner. There are about 3000 jet airliners in the United States alone.
The invention is not limited to use in aircraft and space vehicles. Hospitals, kitchens, and cleanrooms for manufacturing microelectronic circuits are other sites for use of the catalytic air cleaner. In all cases, the object is to incinerate the contaminants with a minimum heat input.